Slice of Life #22: What is Your Teaching Identity?

Discovering Your Teaching Identity

"Read an hour every day in your chosen field.  This works out to about one book per week, fifty books per year, and will guarantee your success."

                 --Brian Tracy, Motivational Coach and Author

On occasion, I have heard teachers wonder at the extensive knowledge base of some of their peers.   For example, a teacher asked recently said, “I’ve been teaching a long time, but it seems like some teachers are way ahead of me in terms of what they know.  How did that happen?”

My reply was to consider several things that we do to learn and grow.  Had she attended workshops?  Did she read professionally either on her own or with study groups?  Did she participate in professional organizations?  Did she write reflections or collaborate with peers?  What is your “teaching identity?”

Workshops:

In my district, you may take two professional leave days per year (oftentimes, more are granted if needed).  So, let’s do the math:  if you attended just two professional events per year, over the course of 20 years, you would have accumulated knowledge from 40 workshops!  Assuming each is 6 hours in length, that’s 240 hours of professional learning, which is about the same as having nearly seven weeks of classes! 

Professional Reading:

I also thought about this quote.  If you really did read 50 books about teaching per year, in 20 years you would have read 1000 books!

ONE THOUSAND! 

Think of what that means!

On yesterday’s post, I made a list of my top 15 professional books but gave a nod to many educator-authors who just didn’t quite make the cut. 

But if I could have made a list of my top on thousand professional books, I might have actually been able to make an exhaustive list of my favorites.  I have definitely read hundreds, surely perused well over a thousand.  And then I would have to consider the professional journals and articles that I’ve read.  That must be well into the hundreds…

Professional Book Studies:

And then there are professional book studies in which you might participate (or even facilitate).  I am trying to recall the books I’ve studied with teams of teachers over the years.  I clearly recall the very first one—the one that opened up the world to me as a teacher:  INVITATIONS:  CHANGING AS TEACHERS AND LEARNERS, K-12 by Regie Routman. 

I remember a few of the participants and how I marveled at the information in that book, not to mention how empowering it was to sit down with a group of teachers to share our thinking about the text.  Suddenly, I realized that I had discovered the means to continuing my own education in one of the best ways possible—to collaborate with my peers. 

I found book after book, many of which appear on yesterday’s list or whose authors I mentioned.  Then a new principal came to my school, and she encouraged and even promoted book studies.  She shared professional articles, and we often had casual, unplanned discussions about what we had been reading and thinking. 

Professional Organizations:

Some teachers from my district (including myself) teamed with some teachers from another district to breathe new life into our local reading council (as division of the ISRA and IRA). We started sharing the expertise of some of our local teachers, eventually moving from after-school meetings in various buildings to larger dinner meetings in area restaurants.  Over the years, we have evolved from about 10 members to 80, and one county into seven, and even have a few members who have crossed the state/county line to join us.

Coaching and Collaborating

Sometime around my tenth year as a teacher, a writing coach (part-time) was added to our staff.  I had discovered my second literacy love (the first being reading):  writing—more specifically, writing workshop.  I had attended a week-long training over the summer, and I had discovered such lovely things as touchstone texts, writers’ notebooks, conferring, and the author’s chair.  I was anxious to implement everything, immediately!  RIGHT NOW.  The coach who was new and stretched very thin, helped when she could and patiently looked through artifacts from my workshop.  This was enough to sustain my work and to propel me forward, now as a reading teacher AND writing teacher. 

Teaching Identity

Over the course of a few years, I quickly moved from being (and feeling like) a novice teacher to living and seeing myself as a true professional.  As my learning grew rapidly, so did my excitement for teaching.  Teaching went from being my career choice to being part of my identity.  I felt as though I had found a large part of my purpose in teaching and in life.

And then, if you are a teacher, you need to read and know even more books.  You need to know the literature that is available (or that you want to make available or accessible) to your students. 

A natural outcome of my professional reading is the phenomenon that Brian Tracy calls “success” in his quote.  As my knowledge base increased, so did my love of learning.  In turn, I was increasingly drawn to quality literature and informational texts for children.

My own children were young, so we went to bookstores nearly every week.  They would choose a few books, and we would read, read, read.  Sometimes the books were not our favorites and would have to go back on the shelf.  Sometimes, we read and cherished them immediately.  We had to take them home, and they become part of us-- breathing their grace into our minds, whispering their secrets to us, often over and over again.

And, of course, there were trips to the school and public libraries… and to book sales at the Indianapolis Public Library (where I have purchased literally thousands of books over the years).  The first time I went into that sale, just two years after reading INVITATIONS, I remember freezing in the doorway and then trembling with exuberance at how many books were there—at my fingertips—just waiting to be lovingly taken home or to my classroom and shared with children. 

Whether a book made it to our house or classroom, our knowledge base of literature was ever increasing.  We read in the bookstores, libraries, in our home, and in the classroom.  Because of our access to such a variety of books, our tastes became increasingly impeccable; quality texts started to show themselves over other texts that were, perhaps, gimmicky or contrived.  Favorites emerged. 

Love of reading and of learning prevailed over all—this became another knowledge base in my professional life.  I loved the books and authors.  I remembered their names, their words, and could often quote text.  When I needed a book for a certain theme, topic, or moment, I could think of a title without having to search online or the card catalog. 

Guaranteed Success?

While  “guaranteed success” seems like a surprisingly ambitious word choice, I think that Brian Tracy is right.  When I think about what has led me to feel competent in my work, it’s the reading.  When I think about what helps me to align instruction to my beliefs—to even know what I believe—it’s the reading.  When I think about where I turn when I need answers or clarity—it’s the reading.  When I think about what has caused me to continue learn, grow, and flourish—YES, it’s the reading. 

Thank  goodness  for  the  reading.